


if the body were not the soul

by orphan_account



Category: Free!
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Haru in Australia, Mentions of Masturbation, Nonbinary Haruka, Other, Rin is an A+ friend, The Australia trip has been altered to meet fic needs, haru-centric, mentions of bullying, trans kou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-08 19:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7770610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haruka's identity crisis was more literal than most people understood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if the body were not the soul

**Author's Note:**

> Haru has been a very important character for me in terms of realizing that you don't have to restrict the things you do or like or wear to the stuff society assigns to your body type, so I wanted to write something in commemoration of that. Also, I'm literally so sorry to those of you who've subscribed to my multichaps, but I'm writing a Hustle Cat oneshot that will be up shortly WHEN I SHOULD BE UPDATING THOSE. There will be more! Really! I promise! I'm working on the next chapters, albeit slowly.

Haru expects Rin to eat him alive when he accidentally starts a rumor that he's in love with Kou. He isn't, but it's true that he's spent more time with her than he used to, gotten to know her better than he used to. He's sort of captivated by the way everything Kou does screams _she_ , _girl_ , _her_. There's no such obviousness in his own life, but he likes to observe how glaringly and comfortably feminine Kou is, how she embraces it and loves it. He feels like it would be a difficult thing to explain, so he doesn't explain.

Rin, contrary to expectations, never approaches him about this. Rin, contrary to everything Haru knows about him, quietly observes the situation with an infuriating, almost Makoto-like _I know something you haven't figured out yet, but I'm going to leave you to figure it out yourself_ sort of demeanor about it.

He understands why everyone thinks what they do about Kou, but she isn't the person Haru thinks about when he wakes up restless in the middle of the night. Haru thinks about Makoto, about how solid Makoto is, about the raw, overwhelming power that he radiates when he swims. He thinks that the opposite of that is pliant, soft and in sunset pastel colors, a body part that Haru doesn't have but thinks about often. He doesn't think about it the way most teenage boys do. He thinks about how it would feel if velvety inward-turning wetness met his fingers when he indulged himself at night, how it would be if his body was a map of roundness and softness, spreading and yielding lines instead of sharply defined straight hips and angles. 

He thinks about his body naturally making itself soft and easy for Makoto to fit into, about being something sweet and welcoming for him to hold. He thinks that their relationship should maybe be different - that it's his body, not an overall lack of interest from Makoto, that's preventing it from changing.

He has conflicting opinions on this. He likes that his body is a straight, clean line that can cut smoothly through the water, but he thinks - he has a feeling - he can't differentiate between the two - that something should be different. He thinks about words like _girl_ , like _skirt_ , like _breast_ , and the way he sometimes feels towards them, the way the shape of the word _she_ fits in his mouth, in Makoto's mouth. He doesn't always want that - sometimes, occasionally, the clean-cut shape of _he_ feels perfect, but not often enough for him to write off the other times as anomalies.

He wonders what it means that he could _never_ switch to being feminine all the time, doesn't want that at all, but he still watches Kou as she... as she's _she_ with an edge of jealousy, a mostly dormant feeling of _unfairness_.

~~~~

Haru rarely thinks about what his parents would think about anything. It's not that he's making a conscious effort to rebel, or that he doesn't think they care - they just don't usually register in his mind as people whose opinions he needs to worry about. So he doesn't have a crisis over their potential acceptance. He doesn't consider the _girl_ _thing_ an issue to be dealt with, doesn't even understand that it's not typical, until Kou punches a girl in the locker room at school.

It's all over the school within two days, and Haru is surprised, but he figures the girl must have done something to deserve it, and therefore doesn't involve himself in the temporary gossip about Kou having an alternate personality or being in the yakuza or that it was over some boy he doesn't know. The kid who sits behind him in English whispers something to someone else about how _he_ heard Kou really _is_ Gou. He thinks it's meant as an insult, but he doesn't understand how.

He's glad he distanced himself from the surrounding drama when he's studying at Rin's house, and he opens the unlocked bathroom door on Kou by accident. A piece of the puzzle presents itself. He closes the door and doesn't say a word.

He thinks he understands a little why Rin has always been so insanely protective and cautious about the guys she dates. People can be cruel. He doesn't think he needs to ask what happened in the locker room.

He wonders, momentarily, what his parents would think about the incident. Other than the fact that Kou was involved, he doesn't know why it suddenly seems so important.  

~~~~

He has a fight with Makoto.  

He tries not to think too much about it, because it's too much of a disaster to be objective, and although logic and objectivity have never been his strong points, he doesn't want to put his emotions through anything more. He wants so badly to be able to see this clearly, like an impartial observer, but it's too important. He knows for an absolute fact that he's been unreasonable, but he _can't_ rein in his terror of being left alone enough to admit it.

When Haru is curled up under his blankets, separated from the world and every boundary that had stopped him from going there, he thinks about his body. He wonders if Makoto would have tried to think of a way to stay with him if he wasn't _him_. He wonders what would have been different already, if that were the case - maybe he and Makoto would be - something else - and Makoto would have mentioned it to him before anyone else.

He knows the reasonable answer is that Makoto cares about him, and Makoto would treat him the same no matter what body he was in. But he can't stop thinking about it. He wants to take a bath, but suddenly the thought of looking at his flat chest, his narrow hips, and the bulge in his jammers makes him feel dizzy and sick. He feels, bizarrely, like this is an omen. Makoto doesn't want to have him the way he already does anymore. Makoto won't want him any other way.

He thinks about Kou. He wonders... he wants to talk to her, wants to ask _how_ _did_ _you_ _get_ _through_ _it_ and _how_ _do_ _you_ _know_ , but he doesn't know how to say it, and he is paralyzed by a formless fear. He doesn't know why every problem he has seems to lead back to this.

~~~~ 

Rin introduces him to a friend in Australia.  

The friend's name is Thomas, and she's a girl when Haru first meets her, wearing a short floral skirt and bright purple lipstick. She doesn't swim, which surprises Haru at first, since most of Rin's friends have something to do with swimming. 

She has lunch with Rin and Haru, and during the conversation, Haru learns things that make him understand a lot of Rin's strange behavior.

"I didn't... I was a kid when Kou came out to us, and I was just disappointed that I didn't have a little brother anymore. We'd lost my dad and I felt like I'd lost Gou, well, Kou too - I didn't understand." Rin lifts his mug almost as if to hide behind it. "My mum was so pissed off at me after a while. She did her best to explain it to me, but I was making her little girl feel like a freak, and it really got to her. I still hate to think that Kou ever felt bad about her body because of me."

Thomas kicks him under the table. "That's enough of that," she tells him sharply. "You were a child, for God's sake, and you've more than made up for it by way of beaten-up boyfriends." Rin looks at Haru and rolls his eyes.

"That's not what you told me when we first met," he says. "I think you were ready to strangle me, actually, and I don't blame you."

"Well, you needed threatening back then," she says, amused. "You don't anymore." She folds the last bit of her sandwich neatly into her napkin with an air of finality, and looks at Haru.

"You're quite pretty, you know," she says. "Rin had a hell of a crush on you way back when, but I guess you know that." Haru feels the corner of his mouth twitch. He does know that, and he also appreciates any opportunity to watch Rin get flustered over it. He appreciates how easy and unserious romance and flirting are with Rin - he can tease him about his former crush and accept Rin's casual flirtation without feeling pressured or uncomfortable. He feels kind of bad for thinking it, but it's a bit of a relief from thinking about Makoto, because he doesn't _want_ anything from Rin that he doesn't already have, and he's okay with the fact that Rin doesn't want anything from him.

He stays silent as Rin and Thomas continue reminiscing about Rin's previous failings and their time in school together. Being in the company of old friends, people with a shared history and private rituals like this, it makes him think about the thing he cannot say to Makoto, the thing keeping them apart even more than the distance between Iwatobi and Tokyo. Thomas is obviously not a guy, although she has a similar build to Haru's, and she seems utterly comfortable with the feminine things that Haru doesn't have the nerve to try yet. He's jealous, he realizes. He hates this problem for keeping him from Makoto, hates his fear and uncertainty for not letting him talk to Makoto about it. As much as he dreads going home, he feels now more than ever that he _needs_ to.

~~~~ 

"You know, Haru, about that night-" They're in their hotel room. Haru is on his laptop, squished into a corner of the bed by a sprawling Rin. He thinks he knows what Rin is about to do - give him a well-deserved lecture about how much he's hurting Makoto, who is a good person and deserves better. He doesn't want to hear it right now. He has never been confused about the fact that he loves Makoto - not even necessarily in a _romantic_ way, he's just always loved him - and responding honestly to Rin would require an explanation of this. He doesn't want to explain it.

"Don't beat yourself up," Rin says. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Well, just... I think I know what's going on. Like not _exactly_ , but I have a general sense of what's going on with you right now."

"What do you think's going on?" 

Rin swallows. He looks uncomfortable and nervous, like he's walking on eggshells. Haru doesn't like the fact that he's made Rin feel that way. 

"Do you - like being called a boy?" He asks. "Don't get mad at me. You wanted to know what I thought."

"I'm not mad." Haru says. He looks at his laptop screen for so long he's pretty sure Rin thinks he's ignoring him. "I do, every once in a while, I guess."

"So, do you, well, not like it most of the time?" 

"I don't," Haru says. He doesn't feel anything dramatic, like wanting to cry or run away. He feels comfortable and normal for the first time in a long time.

Rin is quiet. He rubs a fold of the coverlet between his fingers like a nervous tic.

"Makoto doesn't know," he says after several seconds. 

"I just - " Haru doesn't know. He doesn't know what he wants or likes or needs, he doesn't know what to say to Rin or Makoto or even Kou, who understands. He doesn't know anything about this stuff except that he'd once heard one of his teachers saying something about how his new brother-in-law was an _okama_ and he didn't know what his sister had been thinking. It's not a promising scrap of knowledge to have.

"Hey," Rin says. "You look like Kou right now." 

"What?" 

"I just mean, I've seen her look like that. The way you look right now. It's okay." 

"What did you tell her?" 

"Well - I mean, it's different, I don't think you actually feel a hundred percent like a girl, am I right? But I told her I loved her. Same goes for you. God, it feels weird saying that to you, but you know. We're friends. You know how I mean it. And - " He isn't fiddling with the coverlet anymore. There's a stretched, worried bit of fabric sticking up where he was messing with it. "I told her I was sorry if I'd ever made her feel like there was something wrong with her."

"You haven't done that to me." 

"Good," Rin says. "I told her she was beautiful. Even if people told her she wasn't, even if I ever did, even if Mom ever did, and she wouldn't."

"I don't know what my mom would do," Haru says. Now he wants to cry, not so much that he can't control it, but he does want to.

~~~~ 

Makoto is waiting for them at the airport. 

He looks like _home_ and acceptance and peace. Haru has a hard time speaking. He feels like he's going to ruin something precious and delicate if he says the wrong thing - something he's never felt around Makoto before. He loves Makoto. He wants too much when he's near him - he wants to play video games together and be helped out of the pool and have his hair dried while Makoto lectures him, like they already do, but he also wants Makoto to kiss him in the airport and put an arm around him as they walk, even though Haru would probably protest this silently, through glares and unresponsiveness.

He and Makoto apologize. They discuss their futures. Haru can't help feeling a little bitter as he tells Makoto to follow his dreams, and he hates himself for feeling it.   

"Haru?" Makoto asks him while they're sitting alone on the bleachers. "Are you - feeling alright?"

Haru shrugs. 

"I talked to Rin," Makoto says in a rush of air, much the same way he'd said he was going to Tokyo.

This is different from the conversation with Rin, in the comfort of a hotel room and a different country. Haru hates Rin blindly for several seconds. He wants to throw up. 

"I'm sorry I didn't pick up on it sooner," Makoto is saying when he's all there again.

"Don't apologize again," is all Haru can say. 

"Can I ask... like, oh, I don't know where to start. Do you want me to... do anything... differently?" Haru honestly doesn't know. He looks at his hands in his lap. Makoto is okay with it. Makoto is okay with him. 

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Haru says eventually. "It's not an excuse for yelling at you, but I just thought, I felt like -" Oh shit, oh shit. He doesn't need to go there. Makoto accepting him as not-a-guy is one thing, but he's on the edge of admitting that he'd thought... he'd thought Makoto might love him in a different way, might want him, if he were a girl. He doesn't want Makoto to think that's the only reason he's... well, sort of unwillingly coming out. They _are_ separate issues, but they'd affected each other massively, to the point where he'd kind of lumped them together in his mind.

Makoto doesn't press him, though, so Haru doesn't finish the sentence. Instead, he stares at Makoto's hands, a detail that makes him think of comfort and security.

"Please," he says. It just slips out, he doesn't really understand that he's said it out loud until Makoto looks at him, worried. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Just - please. Please stay. Not here in Iwatobi, but just - you know - stay. Please. Please." Haru isn't a hundred percent sure what he's saying. His voice is starting to sound like it does when he's about to cry.

Makoto wraps an arm around his shoulder and tucks Haru's head under his chin. Haru's face is pressed against his throat. He can feel Makoto's breathing, his pulse, the warmth of his skin.

~~~~ 

Haru has an apartment in Tokyo with a bath and large, south-facing windows. They are an Olympic hopeful along with Rin, who Skypes them with news about Kou and her latest unacceptable boyfriend at ungodly hours, completely disregarding the time difference and Haru's busy schedule. Makoto lives across from them. They share a wall with him and live in his apartment as much as they do in their own. Their parents are so pleased with Haru's career choice that Haru is slightly less worried about coming out to them in the future. 

They don't get nearly enough sleep. They spend every morning off in the bath, they paint when the light is particularly spectacular, and their diet contains too much fish. They love Makoto, who loves them too and will always be their best friend. They feel no pressure to define things right now. They know they are loved. 

Haru knows who they are. They are happy.  

_~fin~_


End file.
